February 10th, 2009
Kindle 2.0: Give me a Classmate instead
I’ve always wanted a Kindle. I read all the time and I’m always in the middle of five or six different books, utterly irritating my wife with the books I leave strewn about the house. I can only carry so many in my cargo pants, too (although the Travel Jacket I got for my birthday should be arriving today, allowing me to pack along at least one other book). Suffice to say, a Kindle would be pretty great for me.
However (and this is not just a mere transition, but a really big HOWEVER), the new Kindle, covered extensively by Larry Dignan, et al, is incredibly expensive ($359) and still only shows me 16 shades of gray. Peachy for the average executive or bailed-out Wall Street commuter, but completely worthless in an educational setting.
For less than $100 more (assuming I’m paying full retail), I can have a full-blown tablet in the form of an Intel convertible Classmate. It already includes software supporting the major e-book formats and has a color touch screen, meaning that as textbook publishers get their acts together, students will be able to use and interact with textbooks that rival their paper brethren. 16 shades of gray just isn’t going to cut it for most texts. It’s fine for paperbacks, but for educational applications, it can’t hold a candle to the OLPC XO, let alone the Classmate.
The Classmate PC also brings with it a whole ecosystem of educational partners, software, and applications, has a real, non-thumb keyboard, and WiFi. The Kindle is still stuck without WiFi relying on cellular for data and obviously jacking up its cost.
I love the Kindle in concept; the reader in me thinks it’s the best thing since sliced bread. However, in case no one has noticed, the economy sucks and such a single-purpose machine, when far more versatile computing devices can be had for nearly the same price, just doesn’t make any sense (in education or elsewhere).
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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